The first Forum of the Italian partners involved in the projects of the Interreg Euro-MED Programme 2021-2027 took place in Florence on November 21st. Below some highlights of this intense day of networking and exchange.
The Forum was organised by the Italian National Contact Point of the Interreg Euro-MED 21-27 Programme to create the conditions for a longlasting exchange between the different actors at the national level, in order to build synergies for future cooperation. The event opened with institutional greetings from Filippo Giabbani (Head of the NCP Italy Interreg Euro-MED, Tuscany Region), Monica Bellisario (Department for Cohesion Policy and the South, Presidency of the Council of Ministers) and Curzio Cervelli (Coordinator of the Interreg Euro-MED Joint Secretariat).
This was followed by the contributions from the Governance projects of the four Programme’s Missions, which provided an updated picture of activities underway and in the start-up phase, and highlighted their role in supporting the Thematic projects. For the Governance projects of the Innovative Sustainable Economy (ISE) Mission, Community4Innovation and Dialogue4Innovation, it was a further opportunity to recall the importance of some of the tools made available to the Thematic projects in order to strengthen their competences and promote the uptake of their solutions within the Interreg world and beyond. Particular mention was made of the ISE Community of Practice, future mentoring & twinning programmes and the recently launched ISEC Hub.
After this intervention, some Thematic projects funded by the Interreg Euro-MED 2021-2027 Programme took the floor to share information about their developments and experiences in these early months of their life cycle; among them CircleMED, which works within the ISE Mission, represented by Giulia Corino (University of Turin). The project aims to contribute significantly to the transition to sustainable development pathways, by develpoing scaling up circular assessment tools for enterprises, network of Hubs, and guidelines for local and public support and citizens’ participation easily adaptable to any kind of territory.
The second part of the event was dedicated to four parallel thematic sessions conceived to strengthening synergies between the Thematic projects within each Mission. Both representatives of Emilia-Romagna Region and University of Siena as Italian Partners of the ISE Mission facilitated the working session and the exchange between the different actors involved. The result was a reach discussion during which the Italian partners of BLUE ECOSYSTEM, GREENSMARTERMED, REVIVE, REPPer, VERDEINMED, SPONWIND, EWASTER, 2B-BLUE together with other actors shared key elements of their projects approaches and localize the actions that will be taken at the Italian level to address the challenges identified by their projects.
It was a unique moment to see how different projects working in areas such as marine resources, agri-food systems, industrial transition and resource valorisation can share common approaches to support the green and just transition in the Mediterranean. Special attention was given to all the actions dedicated to increasing the involvement of the quadruple helix actors and participatory processes, supporting the improvement of policies and decision-making at local level with hubs, methodologies, guidelines and more. It was even more interesting to follow the participants’ discussion on how their actions could be mutually beneficial and adopted in their respective projects. This is a great result now that the discussion on the future of Interreg is underway and European cooperation projects are more than ever called upon to take concrete actions and demonstrate a cooperative effort among themselves, rather than acting in isolation.
The Governance Projects in Italy
ISE Mission key highlights
CircleMED Project
ISE Mission at work
ISE Mission at work 2
